Ian McCafferty was getting off the metro at Arts-Loi, the stop just before Maelbeek, at around 8.20am when he heard what he describes as a “loud muffled thud”.
He says there is “so much construction going on here that at first I didn’t really think much of it”.
He kept walking, heading out of the station on the way to his office near the European Commission. He looks after some of the Commission’s social media content.

“I was actually on the phone to my mother,” he says. “She had called to make sure I was okay after she had heard about the airport blasts. She is very vigilant when it comes to these things.”
As he approached the station exit he noticed people around him “picking up the pace” and when the commuters got to the top of the metro station stairs “there was a large military presence and mass confusion. People started to run. Some people were crying. The two stations are only a stone’s throw apart.”